The given line graph provides the data reflecting the proportion of income earned by the top 1% of the population from 1975 to 2015 within the seven countries, including the USA, Canada, Italy, Germany, the UK, France, and Japan.
From an overall perspective, almost all of the surveyed nations followed upward trends of varying slopes with the exception of France which fluctuated in a relatively small margin. It is also worth noting that the variance among the figures at the beginning is relatively small, while the dispersion at the end is huge with groups of three countries clustering together at certain values and the USA being the outlier.
The USA accounted for the lion’s share for most of the period despite starting at 8%; the figure experienced a roughly two-fold surge to roughly 18% in 2015. However, it was all but a continuous climb with fluctuations around the year 1990, 2000, and 2010; in fact, its peak of 19% was reached in the year 2012.
The numbers for the UK, Canada, and Germany also increased in fits and starts, resulting in figures not exceeding 10% until 1995. Towards the end of the period, these countries saw a rapid climb with the UK being first and Germany being last. Nevertheless, all three nations fell back to approximately 13% in 2010.
On the other hand, Italy, France, and Japan showed marginal rise to none at all, confining the proportions to the region between 5% to 10% in the surveyed period. The French initial percentage was just over 8%, slightly higher than the two remaining countries placed at 7%. Regardless, the three aforementioned countries arrived at 8% at the end of the selected time window.